


Almost Scary

by jacklalonde



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fate, Fluff, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, M/M, Trick or Treating, this cannot be tagged well i just wanted a halloween au ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 06:59:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2538536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacklalonde/pseuds/jacklalonde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time they run into each other Halloween morning is nothing unusual. The second time is a coincidence. The third is somewhat suspicious.<br/>The fourth is almost scary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Almost Scary

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween!!!!!  
> my urge to write a jeanmarco halloween fic overpowered any and all other responsibilities i had for a day and i ended up writing this. it's short and lame and not all it could be b ut i hope you will enjoy. :)

It's the worst day of the year.

Jean groans loudly to himself as the tiny glowing numbers in his car flick to an ungodly hour. No human should have to be awake at this point—and absolutely no fucking human should be buying  _Halloween candy_  of all things at two in the morning.

It's Jean's Worst Halloween scenario come to life. He has class in five hours, then a few hours of studying for tomorrow's exams—before he gets to pass out candy to sugar-high kids and then stand awkwardly in a room full of people dressed in the most revealing costumes possible. Oh, and he's on his way to the convenience store at  _two in the goddamn morning._ His Halloween has barely started and he's already almost collapsing.

 

 

 

*

The bright lights hit Marco so hard he has to squint, walking swiftly through the store's automatic doors and towards the candy aisle. It's so  _late_ , and he's yawning with almost every other step, quickly shaking his head keep his eyes open. The girl sitting at the register looks half dead, and Marco figures it's fitting. Halloween morning...the undead...he smiles to himself before he feels another yawn come on, eyes watering as he stumbles towards the aisle.

Marco's mother had asked him to get the candy for tonight's trick-or-treaters half an hour ago, and he had (stupidly) agreed. His mother, working on baking her eighth pumpkin pie for a benefit she's going to tonight, looked almost crazy while she asked him. Glancing at the clock and sighing, Marco let the gentle panic underneath his mother's voice settle. Fine.

He doesn't even get to pass out the candy. Instead, Marco's agreed to go trick-or-treating with some of the kids from his class. Even as a teacher's assistant, the kids still think of him as some sort of cool older brother. So he'd agreed to that as well; standing in the cold while they go door to door.

And now here he is, walking with his hands in his pockets, dreading the rest of today. Work all day, then trick-or-treating with tiny kids, then Eren's Halloween Bash after dark. So he can at least look forward to standing and dancing with a few people, some sort of Halloween-flavored alcohol in his hand for a few hours. He's already tired and feeling drunk just thinking about it.

“Sorry,” Marco apologizes, bumping into another person mid-yawn as he turns into the candy aisle. He thought he was alone.

“‘s fine,” a slightly raspy voice replies, thick with sleep. Marco blinks a few times, reaching for a bag of Mars bars, before he realizes that he just bumped into anther person at a store at two in the morning. Marco side-eyes the stranger next to him, tries to see who else would be crazy enough to be here this late. Long nose, rosy cheeks, sharp eyes that eye the candy like he's deciding who his next victim will be. He's handsome, sure, but Marco's too tired to care. So he picks up another bag off the shelf and starts to move past him.

*

Jean turns to watch the other boy go, wearing a massive parka even in autumn and his dark hair tousled by the wind.  _Who the hell_  would be picking up candy at two in the morning? (Besides Jean.) Who owns a hat with a little puff ball on top of it and wears it in public? By the time Jean picks out the perfect assortment candy for tonight the boy is checking out, walking out the automatic doors with only a quick glance over his shoulder. It lands on Jean across the store. Jean looks away, but the guy probably knows he was watching. Jean purses his lips, settles his brow. He was hot, even in that stupid hat.

Whatever, who cares. The bright lights in here are killing his eyes.

 

 

 _Remember, it's a costume party_ , Sasha texts Jean mid-European Studies class, and Jean lays his head down on his desk in defeat. He cannot believe he didn't remember. Eren's Halloween party is a costume party. He doesn't have a costume.

*

Tonight is Eren's  _costume_  party—and Marco forgot. In his defense, he thought he did have a costume—but he filled out over last summer and his homemade detective costume doesn't fit like it did when he wore it years ago. (His mother looks devastated about it, but honestly, Marco is relieved.) So, still in his nice clothes from work and in a hurry to get home so he can get ready for trick-or-treating, Marco goes into the costume store with his sights set on the first thing he can grab.

After passing through the rows of motion-activated skeletons and ghouls that make him flinch even when he knows it's coming, the first thing he sees on the overpriced costume racks is a Superman costume. Perfect. Just a superhero costume—it's easy; he could even slip it on in his car if it comes down to it. Superman isn't his favorite, but its not like they're going to have a Hawkeye one—

 _Shit_. There's a Hawkeye suit hanging on the wall across the store. Marco ducks towards it, dodging a woman's looks when he nearly jogs past her. Almost laughing to himself at his luck, he takes his hands from his pockets. Another, paler hand reaches for the hanger at the same time Marco does.

*

They have fucking  _Hawkeye_? Jean turns and reaches for the last one on the hanger, feeling satisfied with himself and his complete costume originality. His hand brushes someone else’s, fingertips frozen. Jean turns to his left, looking up into wide brown eyes and tousled dark hair.

“Oh,” the boy says, smiling bashfully. “Um, sorry.”

Jean feels his cheeks flare. He's seen this guy before. At two in the morning. In a convenience store. He bought Mars bars.

Okay, so that's a weird coincidence. That's a little fucking spooky.

“You…um, you can have it,” Jean blurts. He finally moves his hand from where they were touching. At least the kid isn't wearing that stupid hat anymore.

“Oh, no, you had it first,” the boy says, smiling brightly and nodding to him. Jean blinks.

*

The boy from this morning is standing in front of him, eyes sharp like he's sizing Marco up. He can only hope to smile wider.

"Thanks," The boy says, and picks the costume off the rack. "I um…I think I saw a Captain America one back there? You should...you should get it. Yeah." He scrapes a hand through his hair, looks back at Marco almost angrily before nodding and hurrying away.

“Okay,” Marco says after him.

 

Marco buys the Captain America costume. The stranger's eyes were sharp—bright brown like the falling leaves outside. The cashier looks at him strangely when Marco's lips can't seem to fall. He hums to himself on his way back to his car, knowing he touched that cute boy's hand, happy he'd somehow seen him again.

*

Jean feels guilty about taking the costume. He finds himself staring at the hand the boy had touched for a long time before he's able to start his car.

*

The kids are already complaining by their tenth house, and Marco promises them just a few more blocks before they can go back for hot chocolate. He sucks on a lollipop and hopes for the best from that point on, herding them door to door like cattle. David complains about the cold, and Marco lets him take his scarf. Molly cries when Aaron gets three pieces more than her at one house, and Marco holds her hand until she stops sniffling.

"Last house!" Marco announces, more to his relief than anyone's, after they finally trek around the neighborhood. A friendly-looking brown house is the last one before the corner, jack-o-lanterns glowing on the porch step. Looks innocent enough. The kids already got the shit scared out of them from a guy who was pretending to be a scarecrow standing behind a candy bowl, making their way up every driveway with more caution every time. Marco leads them up to the door, waits for Isabelle to ring the bell.

Marco is adjusting his scarf around David's neck when the door opens, the other five kids shouting "Trick-or-treat!" with varying enthusiasm and shoving their bags towards the house owner.

"Hey, woah, a scary mummy! And a princess? Who is that, Elsa? Never seen that one before." The last part is more than a little sarcastic, and Marco laughs to himself as he looks up to the person standing in the doorway. The breath leaves his lungs, frozen. Underneath a plain black sweater, smiling with one hand in a bowl full of candy, the boy from the costume store bends down to Elizabeth's level. "Well, here you go, your highness." He says as he tosses a handful of candy inside. Elizabeth beams, peering into her pillow case after. His undercut spiked in all the wrong places and chocolate smearing the corner of his lips, the boy half-smiles and compliments each of the costumes as he tosses candy inside their bags.

He looks up just as Marco feels his palms start to sweat."All right, see you later. Happy Halloween guys—"

*

 _Shit_. _Fuck_. The first thing Jean had seen when he opened his front door was a ball on top of a knitted hat, out of the corner of his vision. There's no way that he's going to look up and see the boy from the store at two in the morning, or the one who reached for the same costume. So he ignores the figure waiting a little ways down the path, before finally looking up. And there he is. Mouth slightly parted, cheeks and nose red from the cold. Jean's voice sticks in his throat.

The kids surrounding the boy all thank Jean in unison, and Jean tries to glance down at them to smile, but his gaze falls back on the stranger in a parka and freckles along his cheeks. He looks like he's just seen a ghost. When the kids start pulling on his coat and demanding  _just a few more houses_ , the stranger turns to leave. 

"Wait! You don't want candy?" Jean shouts to him. The freckled boy turns back, that same look that he'd given Jean earlier playing across his eyes. Like he'd be being rude if he said yes.

"Thank you," He says, slightly tilting his head. "But I've had too much already tonight." He laughs afterward, sending a tiny cloud of smoke into the air in front of him. Jean nods, feels his stomach jump.

"Oh. Well, I guess I'll see you around," He says, before he means to, and closes his door again. He can hear the cheering and yelling of the group of kids outside, heading back down his driveway. Jean reaches up to touch his red cheeks. Did he really just say  _see you around_? To a complete stranger?

With how today is going, he wouldn't be surprised if he did.

*

Marco feels stupid, in his slightly-too-tight Captain America costume. The shield is pathetic and he can pick out inaccuracies in the pattern from a mile away, but the party started half an hour ago and Eren is going to call him screaming if he doesn't show up in less than a minute. So he parks his car and walks across the street in the dark, shivering and holding on tight to his shield. He pulls his mask on at the last second before he rings the doorbell. Connie opens the door, the thrumming music now blasting outside. The head of Connie's morph suit has been pulled off, leaving him walking around like a mobile green highlighter.

"Marco!" He cries, laughing with a cup in hand. Connie reaches out and pulls him inside, Marco rolling his eyes and walking into the dimly-lit house, decorations strung low above his head.

*

Jean's vision has come true. Standing alone in a room while others around him talk and grind on each other. He's holding what Eren calls his "Witch's Brew", which Jean's pretty sure contains everything from lemonade to whiskey. The living room has become a dance floor, and people are spilling Eren's alcohol all over the carpet while Thriller plays alarmingly loud in the background. The collar of his Hawkeye costume is too lose, and he can't stop thinking about the boy he's seen  _three fucking times today_. He doesn't even know his name. Why did Jean have to take this costume from him? He probably would have looked a lot better in it than Jean. What if he's mad about it? What if he wears that hat all the time?

*

Marco walks through the house, picking food off of trays and Connie handing him a cup filled with what smells like the strongest alcohol he's ever had. Eren is bobbing for apples outside, a crowd of people egging him on as he pumps his fist above his head. Mikasa stirs something in a pot in the kitchen, oddly fitting in her witch's costume. Marco hugs her hello, along with almost everyone else in the house. They compliment his costume, telling him that he needs to take a picture with a kid named Jean at some point tonight—that their costumes totally match.

Weaving his way to the dance floor, Marco sees someone's back from across the room. That's a nice Hawkeye costume—even if it does look a little big on them—the boy turns around, looking annoyed and slightly disoriented, and Marco stops dead in his tracks. He can't stop the words that come mumbling out of his mouth. "You've got to be fucking kidding me."

*

Jean swears like hell in his head, as a boy wearing a Captian America costume comes up to him. His face heating up, Jean tries to look anywhere but in the kid's eyes, but the boy is smiling, pointing and nodding in approval of Jean's costume, and Jean has to say  _something_. Why are this guys' eyes so fucking wide and sparkly? Why can't Jean  _breathe?_

"Looks way better on you than it would on me," The boy says, and Jean takes a swig of the disgusting liquid in his hand before laughing.

"Are you fucking stalking me or something, man?"

"Probably seems like it, but no." They laugh, before Jean suddenly can't stop looking away from him. "I'm Jean Kirschtein," he says loudly, the next song starting up and shaking the floor beneath them.

"I'm Marco. Bodt," He answers. They shake hands, leaving their hands together for a moment too long.

"I guess this is just fate?" Marco Bodt says to him, shrugging. Both running into each other four times in a day. Here, at the same party. What are the fucking chances.

"I guess so." Jean smiles. They both take a drink together, keeping their eyes locked. Jean feels a buzz in his veins.

*

Sasha and Christa demand that he and Jean Kirschtein take a picture together—one that ends up as Marco's arm draped low across Jean's back and Jean's face in the crook of Marco's neck. That Witch's Brew drink is poison. Marco never takes more than three sips and the world is suddenly slightly on a tilt, and suddenly Jean seems very interested in dancing with him for hours on end.

 

"I'm a teacher's assistant." Marco tells him, standing in the hallway upstairs while the bass thumps below them. "I'm supposed to be in school but I took a year off." He shrugs heavily, and Jean, drunker but still standing, narrows his eyes.

"Dude, that's awesome. I'm gonna be a historian."

" _What?_  You're  _smart_ ," Marco trails, leaning too far and bumping into Jean's chest. He backs away, laughing.

"Nah, I'm not." Jean laughs. It's silent between them for a moment, and Marco just watches him. His cheekbones are beautiful. Even the way one side of his mouth tips up further when he smiles is adorable. Jean finally speaks. When he does, it's hurried and slurred. "I've been up since two in the morning, can you believe it? Can you, Marco? I feel like I've known you for years. It's been like...a day." He can barely seem to believe it. Marco can't, either.

"What'd I tell you? Fate brought us together, me 'n you."

"On the worst day of the year," Jean stumbles his way through the words and then brushes his fingers across the stitches of Marco's costume. Marco feels himself give a droopy smile. This kid and his disheveled hair and sharp eyes. Warming up to him, looking up at him like that.

*

Jean isn't really as drunk as he's putting on, but he feels like he's about to hit the floor when Marco kisses him. When his freckled cheeks brush against his as they change angles, and when his fingers loosely latch onto the back of Marco's neck, Jean feels like he's had three thousand shots of the Witch's Brew.

*

When Marco drops off Jean at his front door, pumpkins still glowing faintly on the porch, he kisses him slowly, dropping the piece of paper with his number on it into Jean's palm.

It's nearly two in the morning.

 

**Author's Note:**

> leave me a comment if you'd like! (or shoot me a message at [my tumblr](jacklalonde.tumblr.com)) thanks so much for reading!!!!!


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